No abstract

Pathogenic bacterial infections and drug resistance make it urgent to develop new antibacterial agents with targeted delivery. Here, a new targeting delivery nanosystem is designed based on the potential interaction between bacterial recognizing receptors on macrophage membranes and distinct pathogen‐associated molecular patterns in bacteria. Interestingly, the expression of recognizing receptors on macrophage membranes increases significantly when cultured with specific bacteria. Therefore, by coating pretreated macrophage membrane onto the surface of a gold–silver nanocage (GSNC), the nanosystem targets bacteria more efficiently. Previously, it has been shown that GSNC alone can serve as an effective antibacterial agent owing to its photothermal effect under near‐infrared (NIR) laser irradiation. Furthermore, the nanocage can be utilized as a delivery vehicle for antibacterial drugs since the gold–silver nanocage presents a hollow interior and porous wall structure. With significantly improved bacterial adherence, the Sa‐M‐GSNC nanosystem, developed within this study, is effectively delivered and retained at the infection site both via local or systemic injections; the system also shows greatly prolonged blood circulation time and excellent biocompatibility. The present work described here is the first to utilize bacterial pretreated macrophage membrane receptors in a nanosystem to achieve specific bacterial‐targeted delivery, and provides inspiration for future therapy based on this concept.

No abstract

Permanent and peripheral embolization is a requirement of embolic materials in the transcatheter arterial embolization of liver tumors. So far, it has been difficult to find materials that have both good flowability and high mechanical strength. In the present work, a temperature‐sensitive p(N ‐isopropylacrylamide‐co‐butyl methylacrylate) (PIB) nanogel is explored as a novel blood‐vessel‐embolic material in the interventional therapy of liver tumors. With increasing temperature, the PIB nanogel dispersion sequentially exhibits three phase states; swollen gel, flowable sol, and finally shrunken gel. Iohexol, a nonionic X‐ray contrast agent, increases the volume‐phase transition temperature of the PIB nanogel and decreases the critical gelation concentration. Angiographical and histological studies on the embolization in the liver arteries of VX2 tumor‐bearing rabbits indicate that the PIB nanogel dispersion mixed with iohexol (designated as PIB‐I‐6150) completely occludes all levels of blood vessels, including peripheral vessels. In addition, data on tumor volume, necrosis level, and the number of metastatic foci indicate that PIB‐I‐6150 has better peripheral embolization than Lipiodol. Experiments concerning cytotoxicity, hemolysis, histology, and liver function indicate that PIB‐I‐6150 has good biocompability.

Temperature-sensitive organic nanoparticles with AIE effect were assembled in water from tetraphenylethene-based poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (TPE-PNIPAM), which was synthesized by ATRP using TPE derivative as initiator. The size and fluorescence of TPE-PNIPAM nanoparticles can be tuned by varying the temperature. These nanoparticles can be internalized readily by HeLa cells and can be used as long-term tracer in live cells to be retained for as long as seven passages.

No abstract

Phototherapy is effective for triggering the immunogenic cell death (ICD) effect. However, its efficacy is limited by low 1O2 generation and photothermal conversion efficacy due to two irreconcilable obstacles, namely the aggregation‐caused‐quenching (ACQ) effect and photobleaching. In this work, a discretely integrated nanofabrication (DIN) platform (Pt‐ICG/PES) is developed by facile coordination coassembly of cisplatin (Pt), photosensitizer molecules (indocyanine green (ICG)), and polymeric spacer (p(MEO2MA‐co‐OEGMA)‐b‐pSS (PES)). By controlling the ICG/PES feeding ratio, the aggregation of ICG can be easily tailored using PES as an isolator to balance the ACQ effect and photobleaching, thereby maximizing the phototherapy potency of Pt‐ICG/PES. With the optimized ratio of each component, Pt‐ICG/PES integrates the complementarity of photodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy, and chemotherapeutics to magnify the ICD effect, exerting a synergistic antitumor immunity‐promoting effect. Additionally, temperature‐sensitive PES enables photothermally guided drug delivery. In a tumor‐bearing mouse model, Pt‐ICG/PES elicits effective release of danger‐associated molecular patterns, dendritic cell maturation, cytotoxic T lymphocytes activation, cytokine secretion, M2 macrophage repolarization, and distal tumor suppression, confirming the excellent in situ tumor ICD effect as well as robust systematic antitumor immunity. Ultimately, a versatile DIN strategy is developed to optimize the phototherapeutic efficacy for improving antitumor effects and strengthening systemic antitumor immunity.

Previous studies have suggested the cross-cultural generalizability of a 5-factor structure for personality traits. In this article, we analyzed the utility of 2 versions (100-item and 50-item) of the IPIP Big-Five factor markers in both heterosexual (N = 633) and homosexual (N = 437) samples in China. Factor analysis within versions showed that both versions of these IPIP measures showed clear 5-factor orthogonal structures that were nearly identical to the American structure in both subject samples. The reliabilities of the five factors were quite high except for the 50-item measure of Agreeableness. The part-whole correlations between the 100-item and 50-item factors were high, as were the factor congruence coefficients between the heterosexual and the homosexual samples. Both versions of the IPIP Big-Five factor markers were strongly correlated with the scales from the Big Five Inventory (BFI: John, Donahue & Kentle, 1991), thus providing some concurrent validation in a Chinese context.